


time cannot permeate this sabbatical

by snsk



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - everything, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, No Spoilers, a lot of aus, jem and will find each other fullstop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 11:23:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there's a coffeeshop, and a battlefield, and a slave, and a playground, and a band.</p><p>there's only one thing constant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	time cannot permeate this sabbatical

**Author's Note:**

> clockwork princess broke my heart this is my desperate attempt to superglue it back
> 
> title from cloud atlas (letters from zedelghem)
> 
> following quote from the book but non spoilery+short

"There _will_ be other lives."  
 _-_ Jem Carstairs to Will Herondale, Clockwork Princess

* * *

_  
_  


It's funny because it doesn't even start in 19th century England, two broken boys finding each other and the Institute, each being the other's salvation. Although that is the most well-known version of their story. 

To be honest nobody quite remembers when it starts, that's how long they'e been and how long they'll continue to be. 

It could have started outside a castle, red and gold colours flapping majestic above the turrets and a dark-haired boy arriving apprehensively at the courtyard, wearing shining silver metal and a stubborn expression, both natural instinctive defenses against the world.

"James, spar with him," a voice, royal-bred, could have ordered, a few meters away. The next thing the boy could have seen was silvery hair and kind eyes. The next thing he could have felt, however, was a sword slicing slick against his side, a weakness in his armour, if he had not moved, quick, and started darting and parrying back.

The boy could have been quicker, more unexpected. The boy could have had his sword at the tip of the other boy's - James's - throat in minutes.

Silvery eyes could have blinked up at him, looking amused, like he had known this unknown untrained boy could best the king's finest knight all along. "What's your name?" could have been asked. "I'm Jem."

"Will," Will could have said, a bit uncertain, and that could have been how it started.

 

Or - perhaps not so grand, perhaps the rough edges of a tunic against dirt, an empty field in which a boy breathed fast and erratic, trying to calm himself down, trying to figure out a plan - 

"Hi," and the sunlight was blocked by dark hair and a curious expression, and Jem backed up until he was standing, fists up and ready. 

"I'm harmless, promise," the owner of the voice told him, a boy, all limbs and angles, of Jem's age. There was a girl about six years old standing next to the boy, which eased Jem's natural fight-or-flight reaction a fraction, but he didn't put his arms down.  
   
"You're new here, then," the girl said, and she settled into the field, pretty much the same position Jem had been in, looking up at Jem. "Did your family just move here, or."

"Haven't got a family," Jem said through the tightness in his throat. He didn't want to think about the blood, the screaming, the running until he found an empty place where he'd collapsed and sobbed for hours, and his lungs still hadn't found enough air in the world. "Not anymore."

He didn't want to think about it. He couldn't. 

He looked instead at the boy, who looked back at Jem, steady. He had very blue eyes.

"We have a family," the boy told him, "and it's a bit much for us, so we're bringing you home. Do you like ducks?" and that was it, it was decided, Jem not having to decide anything, or allowed to.

 

Maybe it stretched further before that, a hot sweaty day and Jem hissed in despair as the chains binded him to the others, a long sweaty chain of defeated weary limbs. 

But then a limb elbowed him in the side; he turned and saw eyes like the sky, darker - but just as complex as the sky. The boy beside Jem didn't look defeated, he looked - excited. Like it was going to be a big adventure. He was quite possibly insane.

"I'm going to get us out," was whispered confidently, close to Jem's ear. And then it was a blur as the man who'd tied Jem up let out a howl of pain, and everything was a mess of fists and kicking and the boy had somehow wriggled free and knocked one man out and one by one they were all escaping, like rats on the loose, too many in number for their captors. This had obviously been well-planned. 

Jem successfully finished punching one partiularly cruel-looking man into unconsciousness and was turning to look for the boy when he saw a blade coming 

He shouted, "Behind you!", darted forward, and the boy moved away just in time, nodded his thanks to Jem and they continued fighting.  

Later, when they had quickly, gratefully parted ways, the boy turned. "Oh," he said when he saw Jem. "Hello there." 

"I want to come with you," said Jem, even though he didn't know where the boy was going. He wanted to follow him anyway.

 

It doesn't matter how it started, anyway, because eveybody has their own versions of the First Time. What matters - is these are the stories that come after:

 

Gunshots ring out across the dark trench and Jem crawls to a trenchhole and collapses into it, breathing heavily.

"Hullo," somebody says from somewhere beside him. "Welcome, I suppose."

Jem twists his head to look up at the somebody, all he can see in the moonlight is the dark shine of his eyes and the sweat pooling on his neck. He isn't looking at Jem; he's aiming his rifle and Jem hears the bang a moment later. 

"Thank you," Jem says.

They stay like that for a bit, the man taking down the enemy from the hole, each shot calculated and accurate, precise, and Jem lying in the hole, bleeding steadily out.

Then there's a calm when before had been pandemonium, and the man turns to look at Jem.

"Well, why didn't you say so?" he asks. "I'm Will, by the way, try not to grope my arse," and before Jem can say anything, make a mewl of protest, of you idiot, you'll get yourself - his center of gravity shifts upside down and he's staring at an arse which, admittedly, if he weren't in a war-torn moment and suffering from vigurous external and internal injuries, he'd quite like to grope.       

He passes out before he has a chance to think about it anymore, however.

He wakes up in a hospital, all clean white walls and disinfectant smell. Will's beside his bed, asleep.

 

And:

Running away from bodyguards is always fun, but Will's made a sport of it by now. His reward's the few hours of escape he enjoys, the freedom to duck into a shop and have a cup of piping hot tea without security surveying the place and scaring off most of the customers first (or more likely making them take out their iPhones and SIIs and tabs and then there'll be no peace, Will would just like a few moments of peace).

He ducks quickly into a secluded corner of the campus of the uni they're visiting, and immediately bangs straight into a warm body.

"Oof," the boy says, from under Will, blinking up at him with soft silvery eyes.

"Hi," Will says, "I'm sorry, but could you get mad at me somewhere which isn't here-" and he jumps up and grabs the boy's hand and leads him to a gaggle of students surrounding the coffee cart.

"I'm not mad," the boy says, once othey've blended into the crowd and gotten their mochas and Will's paid in apology and the boy had let him, amused. "This is probably the sort of thing half the country dreams about."

"Oh," Will says, "well." He'd try to deny it, but it probably wouldn't be very convincing given that there was yet another article in the Sun today about the prince of England's delectable arse.

"I mean I would be," the boy says. He's got a bag slung over his shoulder and the fingers of a medic student, or a classical music major, and Will kind of wants to watch those hands run all over him like he's a piano, or in the midst of a high fever. But. 

"But you bought me a drink," says the boy. "So."

"I don't understand why anybody wouldn't, collision or not," Will says, "-buy you a drink, that is," and the boy blushes, so prettily, and Will catalogues the way it reaches his cheekbones.

"What're you doing here, anyway?" the boy asks. "We didn't get any news of a royal visit."

"Going to be here when the new semester starts," says Will.

"That's- that's here? I didn't know. Hey, that's cool," and the boy smiles, real and happy, and fuck, William Herondale, crown prince of England, second in line to the throne, is screwed.     

He hears something that sounds like Henry's voice. "Oh, damn," he mutters. 

He turns to the boy. "Run with me?"

The boy does.

 

And then there's:

Jem raises up his camera, and takes a picture, testing the flash.

When he looks up again, the emcee's introducing "one of the hottest acts of the century, The Shadow Prowlers!!!"

(The Shadow Prowlers are punk. They have tattoos and piercing and shouty angry lyrics and they perform at a pub called The Institute a lot. Jem Carstairs interns at a newspaper and is new in London and takes too many photographs. His friends happen to hang out at The Institute a lot. The lead singer of The Shadow Prowlers is named Will Herondale. He may or may not have been flirting with Jem Carstairs a lot more than he's supposed to.

Jem Carstairs does not like punk. Jem Carstairs listens to a lot of indie music.

So there.)  
    
The band starts playing, the drummer working up a steady thumping rhythm that settles straight into Jem's veins like gasoline. And then Will starts singing, and then there it is, the fire's lighted. Will sings about anger and not caring and fuck you and sex, and Jem shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and his friends don't notice anything. 

Their eyes meet. Will Herondale winks.

Backstage sex is completely overrated. Completely. Yes.

Jem swallows. 

 

Let's not forget:

"Nine o'clock, Agent," says the cool male voice in Will's ear, and Will whirls, sees the iron spikes coming at him and twists away, delivering a blow to the man's groin. He groans and doubles over. 

"On your left, Herondale," the voice says. "A bit sloppy, don't you think?" and Will turns just in time to avoid a knife coming at his face.

An hour later, Will's sweaty and satisfied and still adrenaline-pumped, there's a pile of incapacitated bodies against the metal doors, and the hard drive safe in his fist. He walks out, triumphant.

"Who're you?" Will asks. "You're not Tess. Tess is nice."

"Tessa's starting her official training today" and oh, right. That. "I'm Jem - James Carstairs," the voice says. "Your new quartermaster."

"Are you hot," Will enquires. "You sound hot."

"A thousand times better than what you're imagining right now," Jem Carstairs returns. "Now go and get cleaned up and report back to hq, double oh nine."

"Yes, sir," Will says, a little low, a little filthy, a lot inappropriate. He can actually hear Jem rolling his eyes on the other end.

 

Or:

A five year old boy in the playground, and he's got cerulean eyes and a scowl on, and he runs back over to the slide. It's currently being occupied by another boy, all dark hair with streaks of silver (which Will finds pretty cool, but really not the point, now) who's sitting on the top, just staring down at everyone else.

"You're on my slide," Will informs him abruptly.

The boy looks at Will, and smiles, but doesn't budge. "Wait, I like being up here," he says. "Have you ever just sat up here and felt tall?"

"No, 'course not," Will says, because he'd always slid down as fast as possible, loving the steep feeling of falling. "That's not what slides are for, silly."

"Come and see," the boy says, and moves over, and Will clambers up and figures he'll tell the boy to move later, once he's seen what the fuss is about.

The boy's right. He feels like king from here, it's awesome. He doesn't tell the boy to get off his slide.

(Later, they will go home, and chatter excitedly to their respective mothers about the boy they met at the slide that day. And later, they will meet at school, and sit together because it will be the first day and already no tecaher can tear them apart. And later, Jem will be in marching band and Will will be the captain of the football team. And later, at their prom, they will escape the music and lights and spiked lemonade and walk to the playground where they first met, and they will kiss and kiss against the slide, kiss until Jem's flushed and gasping, kiss until Will's world narrows down to the boy around him and against him, kiss like the world is ending (even though for them it's just begun.))

 

There's also the ending of the story:

"Finally," and Jem stretches out a hand to help Will over. Will takes it, instinctively, although he'd learned how to walk without his parabatai years ago. "What took you so long?" Jem enquires mischievously. They're face to face now. Will feels a little bit like he's come home, although this place is as unfamiliar to him as anything.

"I'm sorry, was there a time limit?" Will asks back. 

Jem smiles at this, the fond familiar smile Will's missed so much. "But then you were always late," he says, and takes Will's hand again. "Come on, I want to show you everything," and Will comes on. He wants to see everything, and he wants to see it with Jem.

 

(but this is the simplest story, and the one they'll always forget:

The smell of freshly roasted cacao beans, and the whirring of a coffee maker. The bell tinkles, and Jem looks up, has to catch a breath because  - god.

The customer who's just walked in has blue eyes deep like the sea and hair curving over his forehead and the kind of cheekbones Jem wants to map out with his tongue. He's beautiful. Jem may or may not be staring in awe. Which. He says, quickly, "Hi! What're you having, then?" before platitudes about the teasing line of golden skin exposed by the guy's collared shirt escape his mouth.

"Um. Black, please. Sugar. Whipped cream. Lots and lots of whipped cream. Not a word. No judging."

"I didn't say anything," Jem says, busying himself with the order.

"I could feel it," the guy tells him. Jem risks a glance up, and he's grinning, the sort of smile one goes to war for. "I could feel it, you cold murky judgement in my bones. Yours and that infernal beast's over there," he adds, pointing at the duck-shaped tip jar.

"What's wrong with Brenda?" asks Jem. "Leave her alone, she's done you no wrong." 

"Oh, the foul creature has a name," the guys says distrustingly. "Don't trust her, James-" he's obviously read Jem's nametag, and the name rolls easy and sweet off his tongue "they're all the same, they'll take over the world if we don't watch them close." 

Jem hides his smile behind the coffee maker. Of course he's crazy, all the hot ones are.     

"It's Jem," he says. 

"Jem," the guy says. "I like that. It's lovely. It suits you."

"I kinda need yours," says Jem, ducking his head.

"Will," Will tells him. He smiles again, sudden; it's akin to the sun, except if the sun did this dimply thing Will's doing Jem would be blind by now. "And, for a duck defender-" he says it like it's a disease, "you're kinda fifty kinds of gorgeous, I just thought you should know."   

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Jem informs him, but he's already kind of a little bit in love.

**/end/**

**Author's Note:**

> comments are beloved there and here and everywhere, not beta'd so all mistakes are mine and feel free to correct them :)


End file.
